After more than two months of war in Ukraine, the Russian army continues to bombard the Donbass, which according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could turn into a field of ruins like Mariupol.
For her part, the Deputy Prime Minister accused Russia of using Ukrainian civilians as hostages and said that large numbers of Ukrainians had been deported across the border.
We take stock of the events that have shaped the last few hours.
Mariupol devastated
During a press trip to Mariupol organized by the Russian army, AFP teams were able to assess the extent of the damage in the city in south-eastern Ukraine.
Today, between charred buildings, sunken ships and shrapnel, the port of Mariupol is completely devastated and bears the scars of the siege that made the strategic city on the Sea of Azov one of the symbols of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
When fighting ceases, the noise of the bombardments regularly comes from the industrial zone that houses the Azovstal metallurgical complex, the ultimate redoubt controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, where several hundred Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are holed up in underground galleries that date back to Soviet times.
AFP could hear heavy shelling in Azovstal in the morning and into the afternoon. By early afternoon, the blasts were only seconds apart, with some appearing to be particularly powerful. Columns of gray smoke sometimes rose into the sky of the industrial area.
Another sign that the danger is not yet completely over is demining work in the port area, where rocket splinters cover the ground. Two unexploded grenades stuck vertically in the tar. “The harbor water and the harbor itself were mined. We conduct demining operations to secure them.”explained Sergei Neka, a senior official of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the pro-Russian separatist administration.
Russia is trying to destroy the Donbass and its people, says Volodymyr Zelenskyy
According to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Mariupol, once one of the most developed cities in the region, is now one “Russian concentration camp in ruins”.
In his daily video address, the Ukrainian President also described yesterday’s Russian attack on Kyiv during the visit of UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “premeditated and brutal humiliation”laments that she stayed “without a strong answer”.
in Donbass, “The constant brutal bombing, the constant Russian attacks on infrastructure and residential areas show that Russia wants to cleanse this territory of all its inhabitants. Therefore, defending our country, defending our people is literally a fight for life.proclaimed the President of Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on residents of the towns and villages of Donbass to resist. “If the Russian invaders can even partially realize their plans, then they will have enough artillery and aircraft to turn the whole Donbass into stones. As in Mariupol. »
In Kharkiv, a large city in the north, the situation is like this “brutally” but Ukrainian troops and intelligence agents “have achieved significant tactical successes”, he said without further elaboration. In the country’s second largest city, which was shelled by Russian artillery for weeks, violent explosions were heard on Friday night into Saturday.
Deportation of Ukrainian civilians
According to Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister, Moscow tried to exchange Ukrainian civilians for Russian military prisoners, which the Geneva Convention prohibits.
Iryna Vereshchuk told the BBC her cabinet rejected this prisoner exchange and asked Russia to return the captured Ukrainian civilians.
There is mounting evidence that Russia has been forcibly deporting large numbers of civilians across the border since the invasion of Ukraine began, the BBC reports. “That’s why they took all these hostages — civilians, women, community workers… to try to use them”said the Deputy Prime Minister.
For several weeks now, Volodymyr Zelensky has been accusing the Russians of deporting Ukrainians to their territory.
According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, there were about a million people “evacuated” from Ukraine to Russia since February 24.
Russia avoids default with dollar payment
Russia made what appeared to be a belated about-face on Friday to avoid a debt default, making a series of interest payments in dollars on its foreign debt, having previously been required to pay only in rubles while its reserves remained frozen.
Russia’s $40 billion in international borrowing has become the focus of a financial strategy in the context of Western sanctions. Investors and rating agencies did not expect Russia to be able to swap rubles for dollars before a 30-day grace period expired next week, suggesting Moscow was heading for a historic default.
A senior US official confirmed that Moscow made the payment without using frozen reserves in the United States, adding that the exact source of the funds is unclear.
Because the United States sanctioned Russia’s central bank early in the conflict, Russia’s only option was to use either new revenue from activities like oil and gas sales or reserves of existing foreign currency outside the country, explains Le Monde.
Joe Biden rejects Vladimir Putin’s invitation to the G20
After the Indonesian president invited Russian and Ukrainian leaders to the G20 summit in November, the United States said on Friday that the world can no longer treat Vladimir Putin the way it used to.
US President Joe Biden “publicly expressed its disapproval of President Putin’s presence at the G20”said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, but welcomed Ukrainians’ invitation to the summit.
She added that the United States was in contact with the Indonesians and that Russia’s invitation predated the invasion, which began on February 24.
He does not “Don’t act like nothing happened” Regarding Russia’s participation in international summits, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said, who did not say whether Washington would refuse to attend the meeting.
Since the beginning of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine, the West has tried to isolate Russia on the diplomatic stage.
Unlike Ukraine, Russia is a member of the G20, which brings together the world’s largest economies.
war in Ukraine. Deportation of civilians, devastated Mariupol… The point in the nightEXPAND